Ok another question I need answered in order to get this classic on
the road. I just work on the break. All of them are bled and there
does not seem to be air in the lines. I just added the self adjusters
to the back breaks which the last people that worked on it left out.
Any way it has basically new breaks all around. However, the breaks
are hard until i turn on the key and when the cars running the breaks
go way down. Is this how they are supposed to be or is there a problem?

Do the brakes stop the vehicle?

What did you HAVE to do to the brakes?

How low is low? They pedal is supposed to drop some when the booster has
vacuum! ;-)

To see if the rear shoes are adjusted properly pull up on the hand brake and
see if the pedal continues to drop the same amount. It should be a little
higher but not a lot higher. ;-)

"Jackson" <J (AT) CK (DOT) SON> wrote

Well the brakes do seem to stop the vehicle fine. Low is pretty low,
or at least lower than im used to with my diesel.

I had to put the self adjusters in the rear brakes because whoever did
them last left them out.

I'll check the vacuum lines tonight.

One question. With sensible driving, which i do do, what sort of gas
mileage should I get with this car. It has no A/C and it's a five
speed.

Two things I would look for...

1. Does the fluid level go down any if you press and hold the brakes down
multiple times? If so, you have a leak somewhere. It may be a bad caliper
at one of the wheels, but a car of that age could have rusted brake lines
too. I recently had a similar problem, and couldn't figure out where it was
leaking. After tracing the brake lines, I discovered the brake lines in my
1976 Rabbit run through the passenger compartment and had rusted through
under the carpet. So I had to replace the brake lines and clean up a mess
of brake fluid in the floorpan.

2. If you press than hold the brake pedal down, does it slowly drop to the
floor over time? If so, you could have a bad master cylinder. Basically,
the seals in the cylinder are letting fluid leak by, and the pedal drops
accordingly.

But, you description seems to indicate the brakes are fine until you start
the engine. Which leads me to think that's just the normal operation of the
vaccuum brake booster.

You might check the freeplay on the brake pedal, but if the brakes work
well, and you aren't losing any brake fluid, I don't think there's any
problem.

Anthony

There is not leaking anywhere. It seems prior to my purchase of the
car the breaks had recently been redone as all the lines and
everything are quite rust free.

<awronka (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

the master cylinder was done too? and bled properly?

YEah after a careful look over I believe the problem is in the master
cylinder. Thanks for all the help.